Trump University Lawsuit: Settlement Arguments In Fraud Case Against President To Be Heard Thursday

In an ongoing class action lawsuit against President Donald Trump over his Trump University real estate investment seminars, a judge will hear arguments Thursday over whether to grant the final approval to a $25 million settlement of fraud lawsuits. However, one student, Sherri Simpson of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, wants to opt out of the settlement and sue the president individually. If her appeal gets approved, it is likely to cause more trouble for Trump, reports said.

In 2010, Simpson paid $1,495 for a three-day seminar, in which she reportedly said that instructors pushed her to sign up for a $35,000 “Gold Elite” program saying that Simpson would have access to the “resources of Mr. Trump and his real estate organization." Finally, Simpson paid about $19,000 in total, after splitting the fee with another student.

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Simpson filed court papers earlier this month asking the federal judge to reject the settlement until the former students are given an opportunity to be excluded from the deal so they could sue Trump on their own, Reuters reported.

Days before Trump was sworn in as president, he had agreed to pay over $25 million to settle the long-running fraud lawsuits over his Trump University seminar program. Overall, the settlement offer has won support among many former Trump University students, who will get about $1,200 to $30,000, about 80 percent of what they had paid for their program. However, Simpson is adamant in not going ahead with the settlement deal.

“She wants to hold Donald Trump accountable for this fraud—this racketeering activity is really what it is,” Simpson’s attorney, Gary Friedman, told Politico. “Our position is we just don’t like seeing this swept under the rug and it shouldn’t be. This is the most base kind of fraud."

Rachel Jensen, a class action lawyer for the students, said in a court filing that about 3,730 students submitted claim forms. Two filed objections, however, only Simpson's lawyers are expected at the hearing Thursday. In court papers, both Jensen and Daniel Petrocelli, a lawyer for Trump, suggested Simpson's objection might be politically motivated. They also said that she appeared in an anti-Trump political advertisement in February 2016. But Friedman denied allegations of any political motive behind Simpson's allegations and said that he would appeal if the judge overruled the objection, Reuters reported.